Wednesday, May 06, 2009

A week of birthday baking & celebrations


This week started off with Michael’s birthday on Saturday, so what better way to start off a weekend/birthday than with a special breakfast. Michael wanted a nice manly dish so no pancakes or anything sweet & ‘girly’, I’m afraid. So I made these scrumptious Potato & Feta Pancakes from Bill Granger’s Sydney Food. As I have said before I love his breakfast recipes in particular even though if I watch him on the tele I find him a bit off putting & cheesy, which is good as Michael just bought me another one of his books full of new brekky’s to try for my birthday. Anyway I have a thing for hash browns, even (shock horror) the Macca’s fake kind though I need to be hungover or pregnant before I allow myself to indulge in that particular variety. So this recipe was a treat, the addition of feta, which every other mouthful melted through the golden crispy potatoey goodness was sensational. To top off the mans breakfast I had to of course include meat, bacon, ottway free range bacon & no less. Even Chloe loved the pancakes so the celebrations stared off a success.

Lunch at the Fairfield boathouse on a beautiful sunny autumn afternoon followed by a bit of row, row, row your boating & duck feeding was a nice way to relax away the afternoon. Dinner I’m ashamed to say was simply cake – Nigella’s Chcocolate Orange Cake from Feast which contained 2 whole oranges, 6 eggs, almond meal, no flour, was very moist & almost a meal in itself. Some candles and a quick rendition of Happy Birthday was all this needed to be served with.

Sunday we had a day of pottering around the house, getting the vegetable gardens ready for planting out, painting some cupboards, etc & working off all of Saturdays indulgences. I did bake a batch of blueberry & raspberry friends to take to work for my birthday though – I love a friend & as they are made with nut meal (in this case almond) I find they stay fresher longer than say your traditional muffin, if making them advance. Sorry about the blurry photo but for the life of me I cant work out how to take a photo of anything covered in icing sugar that doesn’t blur, any suggestions? They went down a treat even though I couldn’t convince most of the guys that a friend was in fact any different to a muffin & not just a fancy name.

Today it was my birthday & even though a) I had to work & b) I am really a bit over cake by now, I decided I couldn’t let the day go by without making myself a quick cake to celebrate. As I had to whip it up before work I made Nigella’s Retro Cherry cheesecake from Express & no kidding I have made easy cheesecakes before but this was incredible, I almost felt like I hadn’t made it, it was so easy! Very, very delicious too.

Off to dinner at L’osteria on Nicholson st in North Fiztroy for a quiet dinner with the family tonight, they do some lovely home cooked Italian food & seem to accept kids running around too so will be a nice way to top off the celebrations & then bring on Mothers day this Sunday!

2 comments:

Kiki said...

Hi Ange, what a fabulous foodie post this is. I'm not hungry having just baked and eaten half a chocolate, oat and sultana slice but OH MY...every photo here has me salivating.

Happy birthday to you and yours, did Michael give you Bill's new book 'Feed Me Now'? I haven't seen it in the flesh yet as I have had a sick house this week and been housebound. Do you recommend it? Of course you'll say, if it features more breakfast recipes.

I hope you're enjoying Mother's Day today, how much longer until #2 arrives?

Ange said...

Hi, I'm a bit behind with Bill & the new book is an old one actually - Bill's Open Kitchen. I really liked the look of some of the recipes, esp the brekky's & have bookmarked heaps to try, will ley ou know how they go. About 9 weeks until no 2 arrives, seems like the second time around just flies doesn't it?
Hope you had a nice Mothers day too & were spoilt by the kids & your man!